← The Tara Palmeri Show
Loading summary
Transcript56 lines
- [00:00]
A
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance.
- [00:04]
B
You chose to hit play on this podcast today.
- [00:07]
A
Smart Choice. Make another smart choice with Auto Quote Explorer to compare rates from multiple car
- [00:13]
B
insurance companies all at once.
- [00:16]
A
Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy.
- [00:28]
B
Welcome to the Tara Palmieri show and the Red Letter. It's the third day of war with Iran and we remain in unchartered territory. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is dead after US Attacks and President Trump is signaling this is just the beginning. Old Jake Tapper quote, the big one is coming soon and suggested that this could last about a month. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says it's not a rock and promises no US boots on the ground and no regime change. But three US F15s have already been reportedly shot down over Kuwait and leadership casualties are mounting inside Iran. And that is why we have our wonderful guest on today, Iranian American journalist Suzanne Kyanpur, who I've known for most of my career. And she has sources on the ground. She's reported extensively on the region from Dubai for BBC and other outlets. And she is talking to people inside Iran and here at home. And she'll be able to give us an idea of where we are, what it all means. And really we're going to focus on the women because they may be the ones that could really bring about change. And we're going to get take questions from you at the end. So everyone stick it, stick with us and then, you know, submit your questions and we'll take a few of them at the end. So thanks so much for joining, Suzanne.
- [01:54]
A
Thank you so much for having me. I, you know, I was, I've been thinking about this, right, that my entire career, the career that you and I basically started around the same time, I've been building up to this, covering the build up to this moment. And it does feel a bit surreal, to be frank. And it feels the same way to people on the inside. And so I have been speaking to people on the inside. You know, there has been disagreement among my sources on the ground about how they would have liked this to have been done. I mean, some are elated, celebrating, literally had war parties, and others are terrified that this is going to escalate into, you know, living in a sort of hell on earth, as one of them said. And but again, we kind of need to go back to how we got here. In 2009, there was a large, there was a green revolution. Is what they ended up calling it. And this was in the aftermath of an election that the people disputed. It was Ahmadinejad winning, supposedly, again. And people poured into the streets. And this was probably the first time where we thought, okay, this is it. There could be real change here. And then there was a brutal crackdown. And years later, that was 2009. So then in 2013, there was a big diplomatic breakthrough between Obama and the Islamic Republic. And we eventually saw the Iranian nuclear deal, which I covered this extensively. I was the State Department reporter then, so I was traveling with the Secretary of State. And so we thought that there would be reform after that. There was hope that there would be reform. Now, people who were not fans of the nuclear deal were not fans because it specifically didn't address the ballistic missile program, the ballistic missiles that we are now seeing being bombarded around the region, including on Dubai, where until a couple of months ago, I was living, which is like this sort of, first of all, it's 90 expats and it's.
- [03:58]
B
I was just there a month and a half ago, and my, one of my best friends lives there, Sally Lockwood. And everyone who pays, who listens to the channel and goes to State of the World knows this. It's incredible. But I've always thought to myself it was a ruse, this whole idea that the Gulf states were actually safe. I mean, you're just, of course.
- [04:16]
A
Because you're right across from Iran. Exactly. I mean, you know, I, I used to go and I would sit on the beach and I have to say, like, my dad's Iranian, so my dad was born in Iran. He came to the US before the revolution. He wasn't, he didn't come because of politics. He came because of business, but obviously didn't end up going back. And so, but I, since I became a journalist and since I specifically was covering the Iran story and I was, you know, sitting in front of Pres. Iranian presidents eye to eye and grilling them on questions like, why are you using dual nationals as negotiating chips and imprisoning them and slapping false charges of espionage on them? And why are you killing women in the streets? Because they don't want to cover their hair and want to be free like the rest of the. The world. You know, they lied to my face. That obviously kind of put a target on me. And I knew very much I had no business going back and could not go back despite being invited on those propaganda trips that we saw other reporters from US Networks take, which is like a whole other story. But, you know, I would sit on the beach and I would be like, wow, Iran is literally right across this body of water and I can't go. And so it was like this exile. And so anyway, I had just moved to. To Dubai when the Woman Life Freedom movement kicked off, which was when a young woman, 22 years old, named Masajina Amini was detained because she had pieces of her hair showing under her hijab. And she was detained by the morality police, and she died in custody. And that kicked off a huge wave of protests. And that literally was the kind of domino effect moment, because the women had been quietly pulling at the throne thread of the literal fabric of the regime, which is the hijab. And the hijab is how they. What they use to kind of exercise power and how to sort of almost like it was a litmus test of how they. How the sort of sort of power was working on the people. So, like, when I was there in 2007, the last time I was in Iran was in 2007. I mean, I was in college. So we were rebellious, and we were going out and doing all the things we weren't supposed to do and doing everything that was illegal, which is like, you know, going out in the street with boys that you're not related to and, you know, wearing short tunics that are colorful and wearing, like, tiny pieces of fabric to sort of pretend like you're wearing hijab and following the law. But, like, we were pushing the limits as much as we could. And so they would let you get away with that, but then they would suddenly start arresting people. And so it's like this. It's been this push, pull. But once Woman Life freedom happened, they lost control because women no longer had fear. They were just going into the streets and not wearing hijab. And so they never formally lifted the compulsory hijab law. But they lost. And it was very clear that they lost. So as the economic situation just continued to disintegrate and the sort of, like, wealth gap continued to show, I think, like, social media was a huge game changer. They couldn't control the narrative anymore, you know, before. So, like, everything, like, everything's illegal there. Like, Western music's illegal. Western movies are illegal. Like, everything Western is illegal, except all of the regime officials themselves have satellite dishes that are illegal. They watch American movies. You know, they drink whiskey. I mean, like, one time I was texting with one of my regime sources, and I reminded him of something that he'd said, and he said, I didn't say that. And Then I, like, screenshot it and sent it back to them. He said, oh, I must have been drunk. And he's, like, sitting in Tehran. So, like, the whole place is just a hypocrisy. And it's now just, you know, now it's just literally been blown up.
- [07:54]
B
Interesting. And so now that Kamani has been killed, what, if anything, changes immediately for these women?
- [08:01]
A
Well, I mean, so it's interesting because everybody's talking about what comes next, Right? And we really don't know what comes next. I mean, we know what comes next technically in terms of their constitution, but, you know, they're taking everybody out that they can, presumably, so that the. The constitution falls apart, the legal framework falls apart. There's nobody to fill in these roles. I mean, Trump has said it's regime change. I mean, I know Hexath is saying it's not, but said. So, I guess, like, I mean, I think we go with the president. He's the highest ranking. So. So basically, we need to look at, well, first of all, who is in Evine prison. And a lot of who is in Evine prison is women leaders, particularly a woman called Nargis Muhammadi. She is a Nobel laureate. And, like, a couple of weeks ago, she was suddenly arrested and sentenced to seven years in prison. So obviously, they're afraid of her. And so that's people on the inside. And then, you know, there's questions as to whether or not people on the outside would come in. And, you know, the Crown Prince, Reza Pahlevi, his name has been shouted on the streets and also brought up outside of the country. Now there is a big concern. Like, basically the last thing Iran needs is they've already had a group of misogynists who are in cloaks and turbans. The last thing they need is a group of misogynists coming in who are in Western suits. And so, like, this is a real concern around women that I've been talking to, particularly because they feel like, you know what? We laid the groundwork for this.
- [09:38]
B
Interesting. And do they believe this is a moment for systematic change, or they're just hopeful, or what do they fear the most?
- [09:46]
A
Well, they fear that there's. That basically there won't be real change. It'll be another group of people who are dictators and authoritarians. That's the biggest fear right now. The fear isn't necessarily that the Islamic Republic is going to survive. You know, I was. I was actually the first person to go on air at the start of the year and say the The Islamic regime is finished. Like, this is it. They're done. And. And they are like the. The Islamic Republic, the way we've known it is no, no longer exists. It's not going to. And so, like, what comes next is the big question mark. But what comes next? And I think that's why there's been a fear among Western governments, particularly the U.S. particularly Congress, senators that I've spoken to, for example, they worry it that this is going to turn into Iraq situation, because before Iraq, they were also speaking to the Iraq invasion. Rather, they were American officials were speaking to Iraqis who were like, oh, everything's gonna be fine. You know, we have our position. We have, you know, Chalabi this, that and the other. I mean, I'm not going to get into with the whole Iraq thing. But it turned, you know, we saw what happened with Iraq, so it seemed like they had all their ducks in a row and there was a plan, but it didn't work out that way. And that's the biggest fear.
- [10:58]
B
So nothing has changed immediately. Like, women aren't taking their hijab off on the street. They're not.
- [11:03]
A
No, they've already taken it off. They've already taken half. I would. Yeah, that, like, that. They took it off like two, three years ago. I mean, like, I think sort of socially, the change that came to the. To Iran socially happened with women, like freedom. And it's really interesting because so like these propaganda. So the February 11 is the Islamic Revolution's, like, anniversary. And so they always invite Western media to come and cover it. Like, that's the only time you can ever really get a visa, usually to Iran, because they want to sort of like flex their muscles and say, look, everybody loves us Islamic. The Islamic Republic is alive and well. And so this year, you know, cnn, BBC, NBC, they all went, and CNN and BBC got a lot of flack by Iranians inside and outside because they just, you know, they were calling the. The kind of revolutionary parades and whatnot, a family festival. And it's in this very streets that people had been massacred. Tens of thousands of people had been massacred in this span of 48 hours. And so, you know, but what was interesting was that you could see people not wearing hijab. Women. You could see women not wearing hijab at. Isn't at an Islamic republic celebration. And so like, that was kind of their way of saying, look, like we're modernizing, so we're still the Islamic Republic, but we're modernizing.
- [12:35]
B
What is the likelihood that ordinary Iranians have any say in who comes in next?
- [12:42]
A
Well, I mean, we hope all the likelihood, because, like, all of this was for the sake of democracy. Right. I mean, the Iranian people want a democracy. They've been calling for a democracy since 2009. The whole reason why a lot of people died in 2009 in the Green Revolution, since similar to the woman life freedom movement, there was one woman who became the kind of face of the Green Revolution, and that was a woman called Neda. So, like, in 2009, it was NEDA. In. In 2022, it was MAHSA. It's just always a woman. It's like there's always the, the woman kind of martyr who is the. The freedom fighter against the Islamic Republic.
- [13:17]
B
I mean, I'm just thinking about Venezuela where leadership changed but the power structure remained and if that's a possibility for Iran.
- [13:27]
A
So, you know, I saw Jonathan Karl tweeted something that I'm trying to get more of a explanation from the White House out of. He said that Trump called him and said that they had people identified that were going to take over once they killed Khamenei, but now they've been killed too. And so I kind of thought, does that mean that you were intending to make it a Venezuela, like to pola Venezuela? Because you can't really call Venezuela regime change. The top guy is out, but the rest of the infrastructure is still there. That's.
- [13:59]
B
That's why I'm wondering if this is going to be the same thing. Exactly.
- [14:03]
A
And, and I think so. It's an interesting question because so, like, diaspora people outside of the country will say, no, absolutely not. There's no room. Like, everybody's got to go. There's no room for reform. No IRGC know this, no that. But in reality, I mean, irgc, Basij, like, this is hundreds of thousands of people. And so there needs to be an off ramp. Like, where do they go? What happens to them? So it's not as. It's not as cut and dry as we would like it to be.
- [14:43]
B
Yeah. And does war suppress, you know, grassroots movements, the kinds that have been. Were so Central in those 2023 protests? I mean, how can they really lead reform moments movements when they're dealing with strikes all day long.
- [15:01]
A
Well, exactly. So I've been texting with one of my contacts on the ground who is basically saying, like, why, like, why is the US Overthinking this? Like, why is everybody overthinking this? They just have to like, bomb the warehouses, like, take out leadership, and then the People will take care of the rest. And I'm like, okay, what does that mean in practice? Does that mean people literally, first of all, the Internet's like very spotty in and out. It's difficult to actually coordinate. But then again, in 1979, they didn't have Internet. You know, they weren't whatsapping each other. And students went and stormed buildings and, you know, like, that's how the 1979 revolution happened. And then they brought in the Ayatollah from Paris and that was like how the sort of coup took place. That's how the Shah was deposed. But obviously the Shah and all of his people fled, you know, similar to what happened what we saw in Syria. Assad fled, obviously. Now there isn't a worry about what happens with Khamenei because he's dead, but everybody else. So, like, what happens to everybody else? And so basically this contact on the ground is saying that you just have to leave it to the people. The people. The people will go and they'll take care of them. And I'm, you know, I'm thinking, well, they don't have weapons, so are they, are special forces going to get weapons to them? Who are they getting them to? There isn't like a concentrated leader. And so it's interesting because, like, I'm on the outside sitting here like, I guess, trying to kind of like game this out, but on the inside, they're not thinking like that. They're. They're so angry. They're so amped. They're so angry. They just want to take them out with their bare hands. And it, it will get bloody. Like it's. They want revenge, frankly. Like they watched their sons and daughters be massacred in the streets, and then in order to go and get the bodies of their sons and daughters who'd just been massacred in the streets with these particular bullets that they could get multiple bodies at once. They then had to go and pay to receive the bodies of their loved ones to pay for the price of the bullet. It's just mind boggling.
- [17:13]
B
That's really.
- [17:13]
A
So that's the level of like, that's the level of rage that the people have.
- [17:20]
B
Yeah. Do you think that if there are more casualties, US Casualties, the US Will stay in Iran? They will continue to strike for longer.
- [17:35]
A
I mean, I have to say, as an American, I'm very concerned at some of the rhetoric that I'm hearing because it feels like President Trump is preparing us for more casualties. But he's. Listen, as an Iranian, I know how horrible it is there. And how grateful the people are for liberation. Like, that's what I've been told. In 2005, actually, I was in Tehran and it was my first trip, so. My first trip, actually, no, I went when I was a child too, but I don't really remember it. But in 2005, I was in Tehran and the traffic was really bad and to the point where you could literally just have a chat with the guy in the car next to you. And so my uncle just struck up conversation with the guy in the car next to us and proudly said, oh, look, this is my niece. She's coming from America. And he turned around and he looked at me dead in the eye and said in Farsi, he said, go back and tell President Bush you liberated Karabella. Please come and liberate us. Karabella is obviously in Iraq. This is 2005. We were two years into the Iraq war. And so people have been dreaming of this moment. And I think there's no, you know, there isn't this naivete that they didn't know that there was going to be sacrifice and civilian losses, like, of course. And that's how desperate they are, though. I mean, like, that's what I think we need to think about. But in, I mean, I, Yeah, I, I, as an American, I worry about. I worry about American casualties because I, I worry about, like, what the end game is. Like, I just hope they have a plan, and I don't see one yet. But that's why we're trying to get more information out of the White House.
- [19:23]
B
I know it's crazy to not have President Trump speaking because after the attack in Colombia, all the, you know, senior officials, they were out on all the Sunday shows, they were talking to press. President Trump's been doing a few phone calls, like we've seen, telling John Carl, like you talked about earlier, that the candidates that they had that were lined up to succeed Khomeini, they're dead. So, you know.
- [19:49]
A
You know, and the press conference at the Pentagon today. Yeah, well, there's no real. There's no real press corps at the Pentagon anymore. None of these questions were really real questions. And even the ones that were remotely real questions, Secretary Heath clapped back at. So we didn't get any answers out of this press conference. And that's really been, I believe, the first one.
- [20:14]
B
Yeah, interesting. Yeah. No, what they've done in the Pentagon press corps is horrible. They basically kicked out anyone who wouldn't sign a contract to review. All sourcing with the, with the Pentagon. I mean, like, how are we supposed to report on an actual war that's happening?
- [20:32]
A
And there's valid questions. Like, you know, so I, I was, I was raised to, you know, in my journalism career, to ask questions that cover all sides of a story and leave my own personal opinion and, you know, lived experience bias out. And so there is this report that a girls school in Iran was hit immediately after the strikes. And we don't know. So then immediately after the. After, like, reports of that came out, the Iranian foreign minister was on NBC interviewing with Peter Alexander, and he was like, a girl's school's been hit. A girl school's been hit. And I think a lot of reporting in the Middle east, like, has to be around instinct. There is a lot of kind of smoke and mirrors and propaganda. Like, that is a conspiracy theories. Like, it's a big part of the sort of culture of the region, frankly, no matter what part of the region you go to. And so, I mean, immediately, I. The kind. My, like, red flags went up. And so I tweeted, I said, why has there not been a press conference so that we can ask what happened at this girls school?
- [21:40]
B
Right.
- [21:41]
A
Period. That's it. I didn't say who was who. Who I thought might be behind it, who was saying who was like, nothing. It was just, like, the most.
- [21:50]
B
It sounds like they. They made a mistake. There's no reason to target a school.
- [21:54]
A
But whose mistake was it? Like, the question is, it was clearly a mistake. Whose mistake was it? We don't know. Was it the Iranians misfiring? Was it the Israelis? Was it the Americans? Like, we don't. We don't know. You would think that the likelihood that it would be the Iranians misfiring is, like, maybe higher because the Americans and the Israelis generally have better precision, you would think, but, like, maybe not. What were they targeting? We don't know. And like, these are questions we should be able to ask. Like, we're. This is America. This is a land of free press. This is. That's. We are the beacon of democracy.
- [22:28]
B
Yeah, I just, I'm. I'm just in shock that. I'm just in shock about the response that Iran, like, how, how this has become a multi country. Like Hezbollah's bombing outside of Beirut. Iran was ready to attack and retaliate. This is not some sort of, like, easy, clean, surgical war that they've entered into. This is not like what happened in Colombia. And I wonder if the Venezuela. I wonder if they got a little hot. Yeah, I think they got a little too high. On themselves and thought that they after, after taking out Maduro and thought this would be the same. But they underestimated the fact that Iran is a country with 70 million people strategically positioned in the Gulf and with a lot of allies across the region.
- [23:16]
A
I mean, so when the nuclear deal was reached in 2015, I was talking to an administration official who said to me, don't you think this will lead to reforms? Don't you think, like, some good will come out of it, some change will come out of it? And there were some ironic accidental breakthroughs. And one of those was that so the regime became completely exposed after that. And the reason for that is all of the sanctions relief that came out of the deal didn't go to the people. It went to strengthening the proxies in the region. So it went to strengthening Hezbollah in Lebanon, where I used to be based, the Houthis, you know, the Katayezbala in Iraq. I mean, like, they have, they have proxies all over the region. All over the region, precisely preparing for this day, expecting this day to come. And so, I mean, I would have thought, like, yes, maybe they did kind of like get high on themselves after Venezuela, but I would have thought that they would have known that. And, and like, part of the, one of the reasons why the Arab countries were trying to stop, most of them were trying to stop Trump from doing this was because they expected that Iran was going to respond this way. They were going to basically, like, going to go down, we're going to take everybody down with us. And the fact that they targeted dubai, which is 90 expats, you target Dubai, you're sending a signal that you're targeting, that you're hitting the entire war world. So you're at war with the world. If you're at war with Dubai, that's what that means. And so, you know, they did say that they're not, like, they're not going to go down with the fight. We would have known that they're not going to go down with the fight. And then that's it. Like this. That's what's happening. Which to me says, they say this is going to be a month. Okay, maybe. I mean, hopefully it doesn't go longer than that. But they're not going to stop because the being the US because they know that they can't stop until the regime is completely finished.
- [25:23]
B
Well, I want to open this up to some questions. The last five minutes that we've got on the live. Anybody drop in your questions right now while we have Suzanne and We have a comment from Tom Crown. We're going to put him up on the screen, and I'll wait a second until we throw him up. Thanks for participating in the conversation, Tom. He says, I think the average Iranian see this as an attack on their country by usa. What should have happened is that this country should have seemed the protesters. I. I'm not sure what he meant by that, but we didn't. Instead, we attacked the country. I think he means that this country should have helped the protesters. What do you think? Or seated is maybe what he said.
- [26:07]
A
Yeah, I. I mean, I think yes. So the country should have. Excuse me. The US should have supported the protesters. What does supporting the protesters look like? It looks like getting them Starlink. Sorry, I've got, like, a frog in my throat.
- [26:29]
B
It's okay.
- [26:30]
A
It looks like, you know, keeping them online, but at the same time, again, like, you can't bring a knife to a gunfight
- [26:40]
B
fair. Okay, guys, we've. We only have a little bit more time, so throw in a good question. We've only got a few more minutes left from Suzanne.
- [26:50]
A
I actually wanted to. No, go ahead.
- [26:53]
B
No, no. What were you gonna say?
- [26:57]
A
So I wanted to. I. I've been thinking about his question a little bit more, because what's interesting is in the lead up, there was kind of anger that, oh, they're gonna attack. There were some people, not like most people weren't like this, but there were some people who were saying, oh, they're gonna attack us and we don't want war. And, like, why is the U.S. always, like, you know, causing drama? And then when Khamenei was killed, one of these people who didn't want war, so to speak, sent a video of crying tears of joy. That's just to show that there's such a range of mixed feelings. I mean, I'm getting attacked by all sides, so, you know. But I'm also used to it. But I think it's like, this isn't cut and dry and there's a lot of mixed feelings, and there's fear and there's hope and there's guilt. Particularly, like, as a somebody who's a member of the diaspora, I guess, like, there's guilt that I'm here, safe, talking about this stuff, but I have family who isn't.
- [28:00]
B
Right. I'm sure that's a lot to think about. Ian Hamilton has a comment. Is Saudi Arabia going to hit back? I feel if they do other Arab countries, well, their oil feed skills. Their oil fields just got hit this morning. Is MBS out for revenge against them. What do you think?
- [28:19]
A
So this is an interesting point. My era, my Saudi sources are being a bit, are playing cat and mouse and not really giving much intel, which I think says a lot in that I think that MBS was a supporter of the strikes, I have been told, and therefore I would not be surprised. And I think particularly because of how hard Dubai has been hit, I don't see how the Emiratis sit it out either. If they continue, it seems that today things have been lighter. But if it continues, I don't see how the Emiratis sit it out. But I'm not surprised the Iranians have hit Saudi before. This has happened before. But then, you know, the China, there was a China brokered detente between Saudi Arabia and Iran. But it, there had been reports that MBS had been kind of advising Trump to go for it because the regime had never been weaker and that if there was ever a moment, it was now.
- [29:26]
B
Interesting. All right, Suzanne, thank you so much for your time. We've just hit the 30 minute mark. What a great live. What an interesting angle about the women. You've got it all covered and would love to have you back on. I, if President Trump is, is right and this will only be a month, that's, that's still a very long time. And you know, he was the president who promised no more foreign wars. So.
- [29:50]
A
Yeah. Yep. All right. Thank you for having me on. Hopefully we'll, we'll return with good news.
- [29:58]
B
Yeah. And for everyone who is tuned in, please subscribe to Suzanne Kanpour on Substack if that is how you are tuning in, or to me at the Red Letter or at the Tara Palmeri show on YouTube if you become a paid subscriber to the Red Letter, you can go to@tara palmeri.com you support my independent journalism. You can support Suzanne's as well. How you keep us in business. And of course, if you're just listening to this on your phone or you know, you, you are watching us on
- [30:27]
A
YouTube, just hit subscribe.
- [30:28]
B
That's what we need to keep going. We, we are trying to keep that halo effect going. We both come from corporate legacy media, Suzanne, BBC, me, ABC News. But here we are and no one is telling us what to do or say. And so we're giving you the straight news. Thanks so much.
- [30:46]
A
Like, follow, share, subscribe. Thank you.
- [30:49]
B
Hi. Thanks.
- [30:51]
A
Slide.
- [31:15]
C
This podcast is supported by Midi Health. Are you in midlife, feeling dismissed, unheard or just plain tired of the old healthcare system? You're not alone. In fact, even today 75% of women seeking care for menopause and perimenopause issues are left entirely untreated. But it's time for a change. It's time for miti. Mitti's not just a health care provider. It's a women's telehealth clinic founded and supported by world class leaders in women's health. Their clinicians provide one on one face to face consultations where they truly listen to your unique needs. They offer a full range of holistic, data driven solutions that isn't one size fits all care. This is care uniquely tailored for you. At MITI you will find that their mission is clear to help all women thrive in midlife, giving them access to the healthcare they deserve because they believe midlife isn't the middle at all. It is the beginning of your second act. Ready to feel your best and write your second act script? Visit joinmidi.com today to book your personalized insurance covered virtual visit. That's joinmitty.com MIDI the Care Women deserve.